How Was Trump v Cohen, Day One?

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Our friend Hans von Spakowski back withus from the Heritage Foundation, former Federal
Election Commission member and the legal analyston the Trump trial. Continuing Hans,
good morning, Good morning, Guard. Good to have you back here.
And the drama of what they sayas their star witness, Michael Cohen for
the prosecution up there on the standyesterday and it continues today. What did

(00:24):
you make of yesterday, Well,it was pretty sad. If he's the
star witness for the prosecution. Headmitted on the stand about lying, lying
in other things that he's done andsaid, so their chief witness is someone
who's not only a convicted perjurer,someone who served time in prison for lie

(00:49):
but he admits it up on thestand. And then I was just appalled
when he pulls out a recording thathe made of his discussions with his client,
Donald Trump. Can you think ofanything more unethical than a lawyer recording
a call with his own client,which makes it made him look even even

(01:11):
worse, I think to the jury. And then when you actually listened to
the conversation that he recorded, whichthe judge allowed in it was basically Michael
Cowen telling his client Donald Trump,well, here's what you should do,
and Donald Trump saying yes, okay, basically following the advice of his lawyer,

(01:36):
and for that he's supposed to nowgo to prison because he followed his
lawyer's advice and entering the payment aslegal expense, which it was. It
was, yes, exactly right,you know. They the whole crux,
the whole crux of the prosecution's caseis that this one hundred and thirty thousand
dollars settlement should have been listed asa campaign related expense. And of course

(02:00):
the problem with that is that,look, Donald Trump was in a federal
campaign. That means federal campaign financelaws apply. I used to be a
commissioner on the FAC, which enforcesthose laws, and I can tell you
that neither the FAC nor the USJustice Department, which are charged with enforcing

(02:23):
those laws, they never filed itactually against Trump because this was not a
campaign related expense. Well, whatwhat didn't didn't Trump say at one point
that if if I win, ifif I win, it's it's If I

(02:43):
don't win, it's no big deal, I don't care. And if I
do win then then then it won'tmatter. Doesn't that seem to indicate that
it was campaign related, at leastin his mind. Yeah, but that's
not the that's not the way thelegal test works. There's that actual legal
test that the FBC applied to determinewhether something is a campaign related expense,

(03:07):
and an expense that would exist regardlessof whether you're running for office is not
considered a campaign expense. So,for example, your mortgage payment isn't considered
a campaign related expense. If you, as a candidate didn't pay your mortgage

(03:28):
and the bank started foreclosure proceedings againstyou, it obviously would affect your campaign,
right, it would be extremely embarrassing. It would make you look bad.
This payment, her claim was againsthim as a celebrity, and these
other witnesses for the prosecution and includingDavid Pecker, have said, look,

(03:51):
we made these kind of payments allthe time for many celebrities, and then
they went through and named them all, including Arnold Schwarzenegger. So that's why
that neither the FBC nor the JustDepartment went after Trump because they couldn't approved
it was a campaign related expense.Well, I'll tell you what. I
you know again, I'd love toI'd love for this to be broadcast on

(04:14):
radio. Or TV, because thedefense probably gets to their cross today or
tomorrow. But I mean that's goingto be that's going to be my c
TV exce not that's not on TV. No, you consider that the two
star witnesses for the prosecution are aconvicted perjurer and a porn star. Uh,
it doesn't exactly build confidence in ourjudicial Sits not to mention a fruitcake,

(04:34):
but she talks to dead people orwhatever. Yeah, I mean,
come on, and she said,and now she's let it out that,
you know, with these key wordsthat often are associated with the Me too
movement, you know, male domination, sexual assault. This comes six years
after she goes on the Bill Marshawand says, oh no, it wasn't
rape. I had sex with himand I enjoyed it, and blah blah

(04:56):
blah blah. This these two peopleare just not belie These two people are
just not up to snuff judicially.That that's true. And you may have
sayen that the CNN's legal analysts,I think yesterday, who's very liberal,
even he admitted on the air that, uh, that this was a political

(05:18):
prosecution and that if it was anybodyother than Trump, it wouldn't be happening.
Thanks. I hope you'll come backwhen we get to the end of
this. I will. If weever get to the end, well,
that's a good point. We'll talkto you about Hans von Spakovski Heritage Foundation.
Thank you.